TANGENT AND

SECANT
SEGMENTS
TANGENTS AND
SECANTS OF A
CIRCLE
 A tangent line is a straight line
that just barely touches a curve at
one point. The idea is that the
tangent line and the curve are both
going in the exact same direction
at the point of contact.

a) Tangent Perpendicular Theorem - This

theorem states that a tangent drawn to a
circle is always perpendicular to the radius
of that circle at the point of tangency.
b) Two Tangent Theorem - This
theorem states that if two tangents are
drawn from a single point lying
external to a circle, then the length of
those two line segment is equal in
length. This theorem is also known as
"hat" or "ice-cream cone theorem".
A common tangent is a line that is
tangent to each of two coplanar circles.
A common tangent can be tangent either
internally or externally. A common internal
tangent is a common tangent that
intersects the segment that joins the center
of the two circles. A common external
tangent is a common tangent that does not
intersect the segment that joins the centers
of the two circles. In the figure below, L1 is
the common internal tangent while L2 is a
common external tangent.

EXTERNALLY INTERNALLY
 Secant line, also simply called a secant,
is a line passing through two points of a
curve. As the two points are brought
together (or, more precisely, as one is
brought towards the other), the secant line
tends to a tangent line.
The intersecting chords theorem or just chord
theorem is a statement in elementary geometry
that describes a relation of the four line
segments created by two intersecting chords in
a circle. It states that the products of the lengths
of the line segments on each chord are equal.
More precisely for two
chords AC and BD intersecting in a point S the
following equation holds:

AS.SC=BS.SD
A tangent is a line segment that is drawn outside a
circle and essentially touches the circle at one and
only one point. It is demonstrated in the following
image below: Secant is defined as a
line segment that passes through the circle. It cuts
the circle at two places.
“MATHEMATICS QUOTES”
 1. Mathematics is a game played according to certain
rules with meaningless marks on paper. — David Hilbert
 2. Mathematics is concerned only with the enumeration
and comparison of relations. — Carl Friedrich Gauss
 3. Mathematics is the door and key to the sciences. —
Roger Bacon
 4. Mathematics is the science of what is clear by itself. —
Carl Jacobi
 5. Mathematics – the unshaken Foundation of Sciences,
and the plentiful Fountain of Advantage to human affairs.
— Isaac Barrow
 6. Mathematics is as much an aspect of culture as it is a
collection of algorithms. — Carl Boyer
 7. Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to
different things.– Henri Poincaré
 8. Mathematics is one of the essential emanations of the
human spirit — a think to be valued in and for itself like
art or poetry.
 9. Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-
cleared highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness,
where the explorers often get lost. Rigour should be a
signal to the historian that the maps have been made,
and the real explorers have gone elsewhere. –– W. S. A
 10. Mathematics, as much as music or any other art, is
one of the means by which we rise to a complete self-
consciousness. The significance of mathematics resides
precisely in the fact that it is an art; by informing us of the
nature of our own minds it informs us of much that
depends on our minds.– John William Nevins Sullivan